The striking new Fiat sedan made its debut at the Dubai International Motor Show

This striking new Fiat sedan made its debut at the Dubai International Motor Show in November, and it could well be slated for our shores. Here’s a quick first look.

Perhaps not many will remember that it was a Fiat subsidiary, Autobianchi, which made history of sorts when it launched the Autobianchi A111 in 1969.  It was an economical, small family car with a modern front-wheel drive construction.

The Autobianchi A111 was ground-breaking because it marked the first time a brand belonging to the Fiat group was offering a small four-door sedan with cosmetic touches like a faux wood dashboard. Quite surprisingly, the experiment was successful. Subsequently, Fiat pulled out its own winner – the majestic 128. Always a notchback, with a separate luggage compartment, always four-door, it was the first real modern car. So much so that when Volkswagen gave the task of making the first Golf to Giorgetto Giugiaro, he thought to imitate it – only to add, “I’ll never be able to make a car like that.”

Carry this principle forward by a few decades and you get the car that you’re looking at in this feature – one that follows the tradition of the Italian mid-sized sedan with a separate trunk and solid value for money. Clearly things have changed quite a lot since the Autobianchi A111. These mid-sized sedans have become the preserve of a few markets, like ours, that tend to prefer sedans as a style statement.

But, in recent years, the aesthetic results have been questionable – because many of these sedans have been based on hatchbacks. For this reason, Fiat wanted to embrace a different philosophy – and so their designers drew the entire range from the start (the five-door hatchback and wagon will be shown at the Geneva Motor Show next year). And the end result has turned out to be excellent to say the least.

The car will be produced in Turkey, and was designed with a specific focus on emerging markets – but has the credentials to satisfy the needs of more traditional European clients, who are sensitive to high value products. The Fiat line-up is now based on two pillars. On the one hand, the ‘aspirational’ models like the 500 family, and, on the other hand, the more functional models – and this is where this sedan comes in.

On the road, as always with a Fiat, it very hard to find a dynamic weakness in the car – both in terms of the powertrain or the ride-and-handling. Our test car came with the very refined and quiet 1.6-litre turbo-diesel, mated to a dual-clutch six-speed transmission. Other engines on offer globally will be the 1.4-litre petrol, 1.6-petrol, and the familiar 1.3-litre MultiJet diesel.

The sense that you come away with after spending time in this car is that it’s very spacious and will make a good family car. There’s a certain care in the assembly of the components, and in the choice of the materials used – primarily those on the dashboard. Of course, it all hinges on how Fiat can price this machine if and when they finally decide to launch this striking sedan in India.

Someone wrote that the Fiat Egea (known as the Tipo in Europe) intends to repeat the success of the Dacia brand for Renault, but this comparison is a little unfair – because the styling here is quite refined and the cabin is fairly well equipped

The Fiat Egea is 4.50 meters long, and has a luggage compartment with over 510 litres of space. It was designed in Italy, and is based on the Fiat Compact platform

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